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Kennekca Kindell (right) and her 14-year-old daughter, Kanija Kindell, visit the Dunkin’ Donuts in Pawtucket where Kennekca works. Photo by Avory Brookins for The Public’s Radio

Temperatures are dropping and for many people, that means higher gas bills to heat their homes. But not everyone can easily afford those bills, and missing payments puts some people at risk of getting their power shut off.Kennekca Kindell remembers the winter of 2017 too well. The gas in her Pawtucket apartment had been shut off that spring by Rhode Island’s biggest utility, National Grid.That meant no heat and no gas stove. For nine months, she relied on an electric hot plate to cook meals for her five kids.

“And I used to heat up the water like that so I can put my children in the tub,” Kindell said.

Kindell tells me her story at her job — a Dunkin Donuts in Pawtucket. Here, she makes $10.25 an hour, which barely helps pay her $200-a-month gas bill, plus the hundreds of dollars she still owes National Grid.